Whether underground or at the surface, unanticipated earth movement can pose particularly hazardous conditions on mines. Risks include the endangerment of lives, destruction of property and damage to valuable, specialised equipment… (more)

I haven’t done an update on my Japanese progress for awhile, so I thought it would be a good idea to do a post on where I’m currently at and things I’ve been up to.

I guess the first thing to say is that I finally worked through the whole of RTK. The 30 day goal I posted about awhile ago was both successful and unsuccessful. The whole thing kind of went wrong after a last minute planned trip to Paris which messed up my schedule and it was hard continuing straight away after that. However the momentum I had built up still kept me going and although it took a lot longer than 30 days I eventually finished. Where I am now with RTK is keeping up reviews and slowly breaking down my (rather large) failed pile.

Once I had the last kanji added I went around trying varies things to come up with a method that would suit me. This involved things such as Tae Kims grammar guide and KO2001 sentences on smart.fm. I didn’t last very long on these as I found them pretty boring and too much information to take in very quickly. I was lost at this point and wasn’t sure what to do next when I made the decision to buy the QRG and sentence pack from AJATT. This is incredibly useful, the sentence pack especially as the sentences are generally short and not overcomplicated.

I don’t think it would have been so good if I had just used the sentence pack form the beginning though. Things such as basic grammar points and the pronunciation of certain words that I picked up from Tae Kim and smart.fm definitely made it work better.

So my current method involves having as much Japanese input as I can and then looking through the sentence pack and picking out sentences I have heard then putting them into my anki deck. This seems to be going quite well and I can see my reading and listening skills improving already – although I know I’m still a long way off.

Now I’ll show some of my recent loot from yesasia.

The DS game is Kanji Sonomama DS Rakubiki Jiten, it is basically a Japanese-English dictionary – I haven’t used it a huge amount yet but I can tell it’s going to be useful.

Next are the CDs:

• Yui – My Short Stories
• Plastic Tree – Gestalt Hokai
• Polysics – We Ate The Show

I have been listening to them all a lot but my favourite is Polysics – The Cd comes with a DVD of one of their concerts and is incredibly good. These are some of my favourite songs -The videos are taken from the DVD:

These are some other DS games I bought – this time from ebay. I’ve mainly been playing Chrono Trigger as I found a complete script for it here. This means I can work through the game and any sentences I think sound good I can just copy and paste to anki. I’ve also started すばらしきこのせかい　(The World Ends With You), This was one of my favourite DS games in English so I can play the game without having to worry about the story or controls – I’m amazed at how many words I can pick out now. Zelda I’ve not started yet so can’t really say anything on that.

Finally theres this – a monolingual dictionary. It’s a bit too soon for me to start using it just yet but I can see myself using it soon.

That’s all for this post I will try to keep my progress more regularly updated.

Kosovo’s government has vehemently denied  EBU’s monday’s reproach, which criticized the political pressure being put upon local public service broadcaster RTK. Deputy Prime Minister Hajredin Kuci even invited EBU represantatives to monitor RTK news coverage before the coming elections and refused to admit any forms of political censorship in the broadcaster.

A certain suspicion of hidden censorship in the new country  however remains: the biggest problem, is that it is pretty difficult to prove. Journalistic autonomy can  easily be abandoned for the sake of a better salary or a higher position. And this unspoken relationship between  politicians in power and obedient journalists is namely the core problem of hidden censorship. Unfortunately, it is also a secret most peope know, but nobody’s willing to confess. Why should Kosovo’s deputy prime minister make an exception?

Related articles: Kosovo’s Public Television Loses Autonomy

For further information: SETimes

]]> http://mrrsblg.wordpress.com/2009/10/29/%e3%82%b3%e3%83%bc%e3%82%a8%e3%83%bc%e3%81%ae%e4%b8%89%e5%9c%8b%e5%bf%97touch%e3%80%81%e3%81%8b%e3%81%aa%e3%82%8a%e7%a1%ac%e6%b4%be%e3%80%81%e3%81%9d%e3%81%97%e3%81%a6%e3%83%90%e3%82%a4%e3%83%aa/ Wed, 28 Oct 2009 15:34:50 +0000 marr0528 http://mrrsblg.wordpress.com/2009/10/29/%e3%82%b3%e3%83%bc%e3%82%a8%e3%83%bc%e3%81%ae%e4%b8%89%e5%9c%8b%e5%bf%97touch%e3%80%81%e3%81%8b%e3%81%aa%e3%82%8a%e7%a1%ac%e6%b4%be%e3%80%81%e3%81%9d%e3%81%97%e3%81%a6%e3%83%90%e3%82%a4%e3%83%aa/

パソコン黎明期のころ、歴史シミュレーションゲームの光栄といえば、「信長の野望」や「三國志」、そして「蒼き狼と白き牝鹿」を歴史三部作として世に送り出す、歴史好きを生み出す、歴史好きのためのゲームメーカーとして有名でした。それが今やコーエーと名を変えて、かなりライトユーザー向けのゲームばかり作るようになってしまって久しいですが、今日から配信開始になった三國志touchにはちょっと感動しました。

初代三國志をベースに作り上げたという三國志touch、かなり硬派に仕上がっています。そして、まさかのバイリンガル仕様。これにはちょっと参りましたが、以下、簡単ですがレポートします。

白地にかわいいKoeiのロゴ。やはり、かつての昔の勇ましい方が好きですが、これはこれで嬉しいものです。三國志8を最後にMacのプラットホームから姿を消したコーエーでしたが、iPhoneアプリと場所こそ変え、アップルユーザーのために戻ってきてくれたのですから。

そして、おなじみの”A KOU SHIBUSAWA PRODUCTION”。と、くれば、次にくるのは「歴史シミュレーションゲーム」の文字！！（昔からの定番のパターン。）

のはずが、”from its HISTORICAL SIMULATION SERIES”。ここら辺で、なんとなく暗雲が立ちこめます…。

おなじみの題字「三國志」のはずが、”Romance of The Three Kingdoms”！！なんと、この三國志は英語版です…。こんなのはじめてだよ〜！！（ちなみに略してRTKです。）

当然、シナリオ選択も英語。

Dong Zhuoって、董卓かな？（ちなみに、先日導入した「かわせみ」では、董卓も曹操も劉備も変換できないので、「ことえり」に一瞬戻しました。iPhoneでもこれらは変換できて、ちょっと感動！）

チュートリアルにいくと、気の抜けた劉備としっかり者の関羽の漫才（？）が見れますが、これも当然英語…。「兄者、笑ってる場合ではございません！」という感じだと思われます…。

Marrさんとしては、英語専用端末のKindleもあることだし、これを機に三国志の世界を英語で知るのも良いのですが、どうも雰囲気が…。大好きな曹操を選んでも、Cao Caoって、んー。そして、コマンドも当然のように英語。

”Charity”は「施し」で、”Search”は「探索」、”Employ”は「登用」、であるか…。これは、三國志で遊ぶというよりも、どうもビジネスマインドに切り替わってしまいますので、会社のマネジメントをしている気分になってしまいそうな感じ。うーん…。

曹操のもとに集まるキラ星のごとき名将たちも、顔と能力値で何となく分かるけど、これは誰だろう…、という感じ。

えーい！これではレビューが進まないですので、とりあえず、無謀ですが隣の董卓のところに攻め込んでみましょう！

皆の者、いくさじゃー！

対峙する、Cao CaoとDong Zhuo（笑）。それにしても、董卓さんはどうしたらこんなに悪そうな顔になれるんでしょうね…。

このHEX戦場図、懐かしいですね！！この戦場で、一手一手考えながら進めていくのが、僕は歴史シミュレーションゲームの醍醐味だと思っています。この10年くらいリアルタイムの戦争ゲームがメインになってしまっていますが、やっぱりこうじゃないと、という感じ。音楽も、昔ながらの感じでグッドです！！

さてさて、とりあえず英語の画面をなぞっていきましたが、やはり気分が入り込めません。ここで、しかたなくiPhoneの言語設定を日本語に戻します。

はい。お馴染み「歴史シミュレーションゲーム」の文字。安心です（笑）。

そして、来ました！！「三國志」の文字！！

シナリオの背景を解説しててくれる場面も、これなら気分が盛り上がります。

そして、内政コマンドもこのとおり。

最後に、人材情報。あぁ、これがやっぱり分かりやすい。

というわけで、簡単ですがレポート（？）でした。

コーエーさん、三國志の次は、やっぱり信長の野望を出してほしいですね！期待してます！！

RTK is supposed to be the independent public service broadcaster in Kosovo. It has been on air since 1999 and has benefited massively from European financial aid since then.  Unfortunately, the concept of an independent broadcasting is gradually losing ground, as Kosovo’s government seems to be misusing the broadcaster for own mass information purposes.

In an open letter to Hashim Tachi, Prime Minister of Kosovo, the European Broadcasting Union denounced the negative development in the young state:

“Pressure from your government transformed RTK from being a balanced supplier of news into a media arm of the ruling party and of yourself as prime minister. Critical or alternative voices have been suppressed” added Jean Reveillon, Secretary General of the EBU.

The EBU reproach refers primarily  to the newly issued Reporters Without Borders report on press freedom, which  downgrades Kosovo  from 58th to 75th place in less than an year. RTK’s contribution for the fall is obvious:  the broadcaster was to obtain a critical  role in the process of developing a stable and independent democracy in the new country- a process that is recently endangered by strong political and economical interests, governing RTK.

EBU requires urgent measures to restore the autonomy of the broadcaster. After all, autonomy and autonomy only,  is what distinguishes a public broadcsters from a state one.

For further information: balkaninsight

Related Articles: Eroding Press Freedom in Europe

]]> http://johnyo.wordpress.com/2009/08/08/day-8/ Sat, 08 Aug 2009 22:51:45 +0000 johnyo http://johnyo.wordpress.com/2009/08/08/day-8/

Tough day today – as I was expecting. Although I think everyday is going to be tough from now on. After all reviews my failed pile was quite large so I decided to study just over half of them instead of trying to clear the while pile, this will mean I wont get an impossible expired pile in a few days time. But still, as long as can keep up and get each lesson added every day it doesn’t matter how long it takes to properly learn them all.

Ugh, I’m not looking forward  to tomorrow – hopefully I won’t get too many expired cards, although that’s unlikely. Was lazy today and barely did any the whole morning. Then I had a two hour driving test as well as having relatives around afterwards so didn’t properly get start till late. Didn’t work on my failed pile at all. Hopefully I’ll be able to get up to date tomorrow.

But still, less than 800 kanji to go!

Didn’t have many reviews or new kanji to add today but it was still fairly tough to get through. I could hardly sleep last night so was pretty tired most of today and had trouble concentrating. Managed to get through everything though so all is good. The one review column is starting to look scary, though I guess that’s to be expected with all the new kanji I’m adding in such a short space of time.

Tiring day today, 59 new kanji to learn. I did however come up with a new method that is making things easier. Before when I was learning new kanji I had difficulty coming up with the stories to use as mnemonics so I would generally fail all new ones the first time I reviewed them then just take the stories from the site. I now look up the stories as I’m learning the new ones. This saves a heck of a lot of time and effort. To be honest I’m pretty stupid for not figuring this out earlier, but hopefully things should get better from now on.

No picture today as the site seems to be down at the moment. I did however finish everything I needed to – had a lot of reviews as i was expecting. I also didn’t get started on them until late afternoon as my sister came back from a month trip to Nepal today, so I was interested in how it was. Hopefully the site will be back up tomorrow so i can continue as usual.

3 down 27 to go. As you can see in the picture I added 41 new cards but I’m going to leave the reviews till tomorrow – probably a bad idea as a lot of other cards will expire tomorrow I think, so it’s going to be a lot of work.

I’m going to keep these daily progress reports short. Today’s lesson only contained 18 kanji – although they are quite difficult ones. I also found a good way to get through the reviews when i didn’t really feel like it. I did a certain amount of reviews then watched an episode of Legend of the Galactic Heroes. This made them go pretty fast and I’m really getting into the series – I wasn’t sure about it at first, but it looks like it’s going to be really good.

Well that’s all for today, I will update again tomorrow.

Pic
As i mentioned in my last post, I’m back on track with my Japanese so thought now would be a good time to do a post on it.

The method I’m using is AJATT. For those who haven’t heard of this before it stands for “all Japanese all the time”. The basic idea is that you change everything you do in your own language you change to do in Japanese – this includes things like music, TV, reading and also food and furniture. Although not many people go to the full extreme. If you have either started learning Japanese or are thinking about it then i highly recommend you read the articles on the site, they are extremely motivating and have some pretty good ideas – although it’s important not to take everything on there too seriously.

I am still on the first stages – learning the kanji. I’m using the book “Remembering the Kanji“(RTK) by James W. Heisig. This book teaches the meaning and writing of 2042 kanji. It works by creating mnemonics for each kanji which you then learn through using spaced repetition software(SRS) which is basically flash cards that you are tested on at certain intervals.

(My descriptions of all of the above have been pretty rubbish and probably don’t make much sense, but if you search up any of the things you will find loads of information which will give a better idea of it.)

So I’m still on the kanji stage, I’ve been going for a few months now but i have had a hard time being consistent with it. Now that  I am on summer holidays i have plenty of time so am determined to  get the book finished and actually start learning Japanese.

Now i was thinking late last night about the best way to motivate myself to finish when i came across this blog. The guy who writes this seems to like the idea of setting 30 day challenges. I thought this could be a good idea, but it gets better. RTK breaks down the kanji into 56 lessons of which I had just so happened to have completed 26 – leaving me with 30 lessons to go. Also August started today, a month with 31 days. Is all this a coincidence? I think not.

So for the next 30 days (today included) i will complete one lesson of the book a day – leaving me with one day to rest at the end. I will also do a post each day to mark my progress and keep me motivated.

This is a screenshot of my current progress. The site I am using is “Reviewing the Kanji“(Revtk). This is a site designed specifically for use with RTK. Going here will give a good description about how it all works (much better than i would be able to do).

Sorry again for the poor description of things if you have any questions then feel free to leave a comment. I will post again tomorrow.

The number of textbooks that have made a big difference in my study of Japanese is pretty small – the bulk of my learning has come from natural language materials.  There are a couple, though, that I have read from back to front, side to side, and backwards, and send Christmas presents to the authors of.  Remembering the Kanji, RTK for short, is one of those textbooks.

You might remember the first time you saw a Japanese newspaper (unless you thought it was Chinese, but that’s okay, go ahead and remember that instead, it doesn’t change my point).  It looked like a seething mass of arcane scribblings, right?  Kanji (the Japanese word for the characters used in both Japanese and Chinese) present the greatest barrier to Japanese literacy, and as such is the aspect of the language that learners tend to have the most difficulty with.  Apart from a few of the simplest ones, most kanji are near incomprehensible to the untrained eye, and many are similar enough to occasionally confuse even native Japanese.  In fact, the business of kanji training is biggest in Japan itself – even educated adults spend time on kanji books, video games, and TV shows much in the same way that English speakers might work on building their vocabulary.

RTK is one man’s attempt to turn those arcane scribblings into beautiful snowflakes that lend beauty and richness, rather than frustration, to the language.

The man is James Heisig, and the system is simple:

1. Start with the simplest characters and build up to more complex ones.
2. Assign a simple English keyword to each character to act as a memory anchor.
3. Determine the building blocks (“primitives” in Heisig’s terminology) comprising each character, and give each one a vivid image.
4. For each character, create an image or story linking the keyword to all of the primitives involved in the kanji and their positions.
5. When reviewing, reconstruct the character starting with the keyword, which reminds you of the story, which tells you the primitives and where to put them.

Those of you familiar with mnemonic devices may find nothing special about this system, unless you try to do all this by yourself.  Step 1, the ordering of the characters, is a monumental undertaking in itself.  Assigning the keywords so that no two characters are too similar is a logistical nightmare, and splitting up the primitives intelligently has its own special pitfalls.  In essence, Heisig has done for you everything that doesn’t contribute to your memory of the characters and their mnemonics – he has built the skeleton for you to gnaw the sweet, juicy kanji meat off of.  Vegetarians may prefer to think of some sort of tree/fruit metaphor instead.

Note that this book will not teach you everything about the characters you are learning.  You will learn two things for each character: how to write it, and one English keyword that gives a meaning for it.  You won’t even get the full meaning of each character, since many kanji have multiple possible English meanings.  This means that you should not expect to complete this book and be able to read anything immediately.  In fact, you might even say that after completing the book you haven’t really learned any Japanese yet.

That doesn’t mean that you haven’t learned anything though.  This is about the mechanics of how memory works.  When a learner attempts to learn kanji “cold”, there is nothing for them to connect to in his mind (like cold meat from the refrigerator – limp, lifeless, forgettable, and they all taste the same.  Vegetarians may be out of luck here).  You have an image, and maybe a word or two, but nothing to anchor them to.  As a result they tend to slip away quite easily, an experience that I’m sure many beginners can relate to.  The RTK system helps you to create an anchor point for each kanji, which you will later link to readings, compounds, and vocabulary.  You might say that it primes your mind to receive the language.

From my own personal experience, I can tell you that the greatest strength of RTK is that it changes kanji from intimidating to friendly.  Before RTK I used to dread reading kanji-heavy texts, since without knowing the readings or meanings it was just gibberish, forcing me to look up almost every word.  After completing RTK though, or even starting from about halfway through the book, I began to find that kanjified texts were actually easier to read than kana-only texts, since I was able to link most of the kanji to English keywords hinting at their meanings.  New vocabulary became easier to learn and remember since I was able to link it to the kanji already in my memory.

Perhaps most importantly, I stopped confusing similar looking kanji with each other.  This is something even Japanese natives struggle with sometimes, but having each character broken down and learned as primitives makes the problem almost trivial.  When have you ever been able to start with an advantage over native speakers?

The greatest weakness of RTK is the investment of time and committment it requires.  It takes a great deal of faith to spend roughly 2-4 months (for the average learner, though it can be done much faster if you have enough time on your hands) without actually learning any concrete, practical language.  This makes it a bit much for casual students to handle.  For anyone serious about attaining Japanese fluency, and especially literacy, though, I can assure you that the time invested in RTK will pay for itself over and over again.

If you’re still not sold, why not try out the system for yourself?  Mr. Heisig has made the first 1/3 of the book available for free.  Many public and university libraries also carry the book.  Once you’re ready to buy, the 5th edition (the most recent edition) is in print and available from Amazon.com.  Note that this post describes RTK books 1 and 3; book 2 attempts to treat the kanji readings systematically, but it doesn’t work nearly as well.

RTK-GPS, GPS med hög noggrannhet i Lantbruksapplikationer ökar. RTK-GPS behöver en korrektionssignal, en korrektionssignal som bäst distribueras via radio enligt forskare på JTI – Institutet för jordbruks- och miljöteknik.

Med RTK-GPS kan ett fordon styras automatiskt, vilket i lantbruket innebär att åkrar kan odlas, gödslas och skördas optimalt. För att ge lantbrukare en uppfattning om vilken teknik som ger bäst precision jämförde JTI kvaliteten mellan sändningar via mobilnäten och sändningar via radio. Så kallad nätverks-RTK via mobilnäten sändes vid testet via 3, Telia och Tele 2 via såväl GPRS som 3G. I sin undersökning fann JTI att i jämförelsen mellan radio och mobilnäten står sig radio bäst. Radio har den högsta noggrannheten och ger exaktare navigation förutsatt att användaren inte är för långt bort från basstationen.

Ett bra exempel på hur RTK-GPS fungerar i praktiken kan vi tipsa om det här inlägget där det i ett YouTube klipp visar hur en VW Golf styrs via SATELs radiomodem och RTK-GPS.

Mere minutes ago, I hit the 1026th character in Remembering The Kanji. That means that I’m over half way through the book. It’s been a tough journey so far, but I think I’m making good progress.

It’s been approximately 6 weeks since I started, and I’m aiming to finish before September. I think I’ll accomplish this easily, as soon I’ll have little to do over the summer apart from immersing myself in the language. It’s realistic that I’ll have gone through all 2042 Kanji by the end of July.

It’s all downhill from here, so I think I’ve broken the back of the task and it seems a lot less daunting.

Today, I need to clear out my failed pile, and make sure to concentrate on some stories that I’m not too confident with. I’m not going to stress too much if I fail many cards, since the SRS allows me to fail often, and achieve greatness through that, as I’ll just strive to get as many cards as possible into the four reviews box.